When You Can't Walk, I'll Help You Stand
by TutorGirlml
Summary: Whump and Hurt/Comfort divergence from what we saw in 5x14 before Emma could get to Killian; originally written for the OUAT Winter Whump challenge on Tumblr


"When You Can't Walk, I'll Help You Stand"

By: TutorGirlml ( snowbellewells on Tumblr/ Written for the Ouat Winter Whump event)

_(This one shot takes place during 5B, but diverges in the episode where Emma finds Killian in Hades' lair and gives them the time to piece Killian back together from his wounds and try to deal with what he's been through. This may veer more toward hurt/comfort, but I've never written a piece that sets out to specifically focus on the whump before, so it was a new challenge. I hope you will - enjoy? That may not be the right word? - but at least find it worth reading.)_

Emma couldn't bring herself to dwell on what could happen to Milah as she waited with the boat, or where Gold had gotten off to and what sort of underhanded trickery he might even then be planning. She had taken a genuine liking to Killian's first love as they'd trekked together into this deepest level of Hades' nightmarish abode. Not only did they have the common purpose of rescuing the man they both loved, but there was a similar tough tenacity to the dark-haired woman, a hardened shell of armour formed from scars and a haunted look in her eyes that Emma understood all too well. Maybe it should have been awkward to be walking side-by-side with the woman Killian had given his heart to before her, or she could have felt threatened or possessive that Milah might endanger what she and Killian had when he saw her again, but that had not been the case at all. If anything, she had felt invigorated in her mission; if she could have anyone who would care as desperately about her goal as she did, she couldn't have suggested anyone better. At the moment, that was really all she had room to worry over.

Instead, Emma vowed to get back to the other woman with their pirate as soon as possible, and she gathered Killian's battered form toward herself gingerly, knowing as much as it pained her that any contact she made was only going to hurt him further. The sight of her love, the man she had given herself over to the Darkness trying to save, suspended in chains over the frighteningly roiling greenish pit of water, broken, bloodied and nearly insensate was a sight that wouldn't fade away easily - in fact, she feared it might be permanently seared upon her mind's eyes in horrific detail.

Her heart, still crammed up in her throat despite having reached him and managing to lower him to the strange metal dias where he slumped in her embrace, nearly choked her, blocking her airway with the not-yet-dissipated panic she'd felt for him being lowered into the seething river. Even as she tried to chuckle at his weakened, "You never listen to me, do you Swan?" she was still struggling to hold back her nausea at the state he was in, even as she tried to chuckle bravely for his sake and banter back, "And you love me for it."

Her hands ached to brush along his cheek and trace over the beloved long-healed scar beneath his right eye. However, it wasn't even visible to her through the dried blood caking large sections of his face and neck and the mottled array of yellowing, greenish and purple bruises that covered the rest. His dark leather beneath her trembling fingers was shredded in places across his back and shoulders and charred roughly in others. Where the material remained intact, she felt the stickiness of blood still wet over much of the surface and the roughly melted edges where the jacket seemed to have been burned - and she feared the same of his skin beneath.

"Come on, Killian," she managed, her voice a mere breath at his ear, unable to muster more sound out of sheer stunned shock at the cruelty he had clearly endured. "Let's get you out of here." She didn't want to hurt him further, but they had to get out of Hades' lair and back to the others, the sooner the better. Trying to steel herself against the reaction she was sure he'd have, she slipped her hands under his arms, in hopes of lifting him to his feet and helping him stand.

As expected, a sharp hiss of breath escaped Killian's parched lips before a bitten back groan made its way through his clenched teeth despite his determined efforts. Staggering slightly, she could feel his strained and abused muscles quivering as her pirate attempted to get his feet beneath him and aid her in supporting his weight. By pure reflex, Emma slipped an arm free and placed it on his lower back to brace him, but as soon as her palm made contact, a harsh cry of pain escaped him and he jerked away from the touch defensively, nearly buckling his knees and sending them both to the cold stone floor.

Killian's eyes were squeezed shut, and his chest heaved for breath even as she grit her teeth and just barely managed to keep them upright. She couldn't read his mind, but the way his body shuddered against her side told Emma he might well be revisiting some part of the trauma he had suffered over again. She kicked herself for having sent him into the episode and whispered apologies to him even as she tried to coax him into taking a first step toward freedom. Killian, however, was lost to the torrent of memories flooding his head…

_His bound hands were jerked over his head, pulling him to stand straight, stretched almost onto his toes, by Hades' magically conjured rope that held him inescapably tight and in position. Though youth and young adulthood in indentured servitude and most of a centuries-long life lived at sea as a pirate gave him a familiarity with what was surely coming, it didn't stop the fear that rose in his chest, or the intense desire to struggle, to attempt escape, however impossible, from his bonds. The dry-mouthed fear and dread brought on by the probability of a lashing struck panicked dread into the most solid and stoutest of hearts, and he was no exception. Once he had felt that scourge slice across his skin - and his back bore the healed-over scars from how well, even ages since they had been given - he couldn't help but tremble at the prospect, even if he gave no other sign of pleading or weakness._

_ He heard the whip whistle through the putrid, sulfuric air and the fiery lance of agony struck deep on impact, a stifled cry breaking past his lips despite how he tried to hold it back and deny his tormenter the satisfaction. Though it had been ages since the days he knew this punishment well - whether in retribution for a nicked crust of bread from the galley to silence his half-starved growing belly, or for oft-uttered self defense when mocked for being small, fatherless, unwanted and abandoned, which was taken as impertinence and punished accordingly - the bite of the braided leather, tearing into his flesh a bit more with each stroke had not lessened in impact, either physically or with the emotional pain of those long-buried memories._

_ After the fifth lash, he felt the skin break as the whip criss-crossed a previous cut one time too much for the skin to remain intact. The feel of blood running down his back and beginning to soak the waistband of his jeans was a minor discomfort compared to the pain flaring over his shoulders, down his spine and out across his sides, but the combination made bile rise in his throat and he could just barely choke back a sobbed plea for mercy. He could not even sag to partially relieve the pulling against the tautly stretched and ravaged skin and sinew of his back, nor could he flinch or try to shield the worst areas of his suffering._

_ Tears ran down his cheeks unbidden, and Killian could only grit his teeth and hope that the soot, sweat, open cuts, and dried blood hid the trails that would give away his break into emotion. When the lord of the Underworld cackled in twisted delight, Killian hated that he very well might know just how broken he was. _

_ The fallen deity released the magical ties with a quick flourish, and Killian collapsed weakly to the stone floor beneath him, stubbornly only emitting a low grunt of pain at the contact with all his injured body. Somehow, regardless of the despair slowly sneaking into his spirit and mind as the relentless and unendingly shifting modes of torment continued without ceasing, he still managed to grit his teeth and glare back at Hades with the fire and resolve of a formidable pirate captain when the villain knelt next to his broken body and jerked his head up by the hair to hauntingly question, "Have you given up hope yet?"_

_ With all the strength he could muster, Killian growled with true hatred in his eyes, "Never."_

_ And for a relieving moment, Hades left to find a new way to harrow him._

When he and Emma finally shuffled at last from the cavernous underground lair he had been trapped in since his death, Killian went to his knees, no longer able to put his feet forward and support his own weight, even with Emma's urging and support. At least they were out of the dank, winding maze of darkness below, and Killian almost felt that in itself more a miracle than he would have expected, even if they weren't free of this cursed realm yet.

Emma appeared puzzled when she managed to half-drag, half-steady him to a shore where an empty rowboat awaited them. It sent off concerned warning bells in Killian's head to see her wild-eyed glance flit nervously from side to side and her mumble to herself, "Where are they?" His dazed mind fumbled through guilty confusion wondering who she had brought with her and dragged into danger on his undeserving behalf. At the same time, his tongue had been clumsy and thick with dehydration between all the sweat and tears he lost without a bit to drink. True, his no-longer-living system shouldn't need rehydration, but it didn't seem to convince his mind he wasn't thirsty, especially after the fires and ravages of the last few days he had begun to fear would encompass his eternity.

Pushing past her confusion, Emma didn't hesitate long on that bleak, rocky bank; somehow she had managed to force him up once again, if only long enough to help him drag his heaving carcass into the small vessel awaiting them and collapse in its stern as she took up an oar. "We're almost out, Killian," she whispered, grim determination in her voice as she began to paddle. "Rest. We're going to get you out of here, I promise."

Again, he wanted to protest, to insist he wasn't worth it and that she should save herself and leave him to his fate, but his weakened body wouldn't seem to allow him to think clearly enough to speak his mind with sense.

The next thing he knew, his eyes were blinking open again, as the boat bumped against another rocky outcropping, still not under open sky, but seeming less dark, less encroaching somehow. Emma was leaning over him a mere moment later, asking if he was with her, and seemed to want to touch him but was biting her bottom lip as her worried eyes scanned his form, as if not sure where to touch that wouldn't add to his suffering.

Other voices began to filter into his awareness then; a gasp and pained exclamation of his name, the dismayed and teary "Oh, Killian!" clearly belonging to Snow White. He heard a low, angry curse that was no doubt his fellow reformed outlaw mate's voice, and David's was an added murmur, as if trying to direct the others.

"Can you get out of the boat?" Emma asked him gently.

He tried to focus his swimming vision on her face, and breathed a pitiful admission that he hated himself for uttering. "I'll try, Love...but...I-I'm not sure I can walk any further…"

She blinked tears back at that, finally seeming to have decided to at least risk squeezing his hand for a moment within her own trembling touch. "That's okay," she managed hoarsely. "Just step out, and my dad and Robin are ready to help you."

He somehow managed to heft himself up, wobbling more than he should, and stumbled out of the boat onto solid ground once more. Dave and Robin both reached out to steady him, and he felt Emma hovering at his back, but none of them were quite able to stop his fall as he crashed to his knees once more and was sucked into another reliving of his torture…

_Hades' minions, two burly demons not quite human or beast, but some grotesque amalgam he hesitated to ponder, forced him to his knees on Hades' barked order. Much as he tried to resist, to fight back, he had already been kept for days without nourishment or rest, plagued by dreams of his not coming back to himself in time and letting Nimue strangle the life from his beautiful Swan, of leaving the mark to do its work and allowing her boy and the rest of her loved ones to suffer in this hell he now inhabited, and the certainty that if he could get back to those he had once thought might almost be his family too, they would turn from him one by one, having at last come to realize the darkness that had always haunted his soul. Killian didn't know if his infernal jailer had sent these visions or if they would have beset him regardless after the way he had fallen to the Darkness and given it free reign, but they give him no quarter, and his spirit was wrung and weakened even before each new physical torment began._

_ The henchmen - he had the tiniest glimmer of solace at the momentary urge to call them Pain and Panic, remembering a distant better time when Henry had shown him the animated picture version of Hercules, Hades and the rest - had iron grips, and held him there on his knees, arms outstretched, unable to move or shield himself from whatever blow was coming next. His head lolled slightly forward, the slight drop in his guard and the thought of a happier memory made his reality all the more shattering, and it took him a moment to register the slight smoky scent in the air before Hades stepped into view with a burning, red hot brand in his grasp. The exiled god watched recognition dawn in his prisoner's eyes with sadistic glee. "You've been disappointingly stoic in the face of all my trials, Captain," he mused leisurely, looking for all the world as if he were about to sit down for a pleasant tea rather than torture someone into madness and despair. "However," he chuckled, leaning in to pat Killian's roughly stubbled and bruised cheek, "I think this might just do the trick."_

_ He stood back up and without further warning shoved the brand into Killian's side. The fiery agony caused Killian to buck fruitlessly against the arms holding him in place; a long, low keening sound ripped from his throat unbidden as the smell of his own flesh sizzling turned his stomach._

_ "Aha!" Hades crowed triumphantly, moving slightly behind Killian to next press the brand to the pirate's opposite shoulder. The brand singed through the tattered remnants of his jacket, practically melting the material into his skin and making the pain linger even once the fiery instrument itself had been pulled back. "I had a feeling that would do the trick."_

_ Coming back to stand before his victim once more, Hades stopped to look at the man trying with all his might not to whimper or beg, still staring back at him with resistant hatred in those ice-chip blue eyes, the lord of the Underworld grinned insidiously as he jerked back the Captain's already ripped-up sleeve to bare the dagger-pierced heart tattoo on his forearm. "Just one more, I believe. A permanent reminder for Captain Hook," he chortled in fiendish delight, "that you might as well give up your foolish hope. You failed them, just as you failed her. You continually hurt, and eventually lost, anyone you ever dared to love."_

Killian flinched back into awareness of his present surroundings with a shattered cry. Pain still radiated from all the wounds that had throbbed in his nightmarish reverie, and it left him unsure of where he was or what was happening around him. There had been motion; he was certain that he had been moving, though not whether his own feet had been taking the steps. However, at the gasp which had escaped him and the whimpering which he realized gradually was coming from his own throat, everything had come to a halt.

Emma's beautiful, golden hair and troubled face caught his sight as she moved to stand before him. Hesitantly placing her hands on either side of his face, her thumbs stroked his battered skin for several calming seconds. He couldn't help the wince at even that most gentle contact, and yet he didn't want her to stop. He tried to focus on her words and to nod in agreement when she murmured softly, "I know it hurts. I'm so sorry, Killian. But we're almost there. Then we'll let you rest, I swear."

He realized that he was being mostly carried between David and Robin, his arms slung over their shoulders, and his head full of sweat and blood-matted hair lolled to the side and resting in the crook of the man he had hoped to call father-in-law's neck. He was upright, but his feet were barely scuffling along, mostly dragging the ground as the other two men propelled him carefully forward. Snow and Emma were just ahead of them, coming to stand in front of a door that strangely resembled the entry to Snow and David's loft back in Storybrooke above. The fact that Emma's mother wore a bow and quiver of arrows over her sensibly sedate peacoat only served to confuse him further, and he wondered for a second if some sort of delirium had set in.

However, it seemed that the sights before him were real as Emma opened the door to reveal an almost perfect replica of the Charmings' Storybrooke apartment. The only difference he could see at first glance was the fact that like all of the Underworld he had seen so far, it was tinted with a sort of dark red lens, as if seen through fire or blood. Emma didn't slow or stop, but lead them across the eerie copy of the living room to a separate bedroom just off it, where Dave and Robin finally eased him down to the soft surface of a bed - thankfully before he could lose consciousness again. Sight wavered unreliably in and out for several minutes, though Killian heard murmuring voices in low whispers at the doorway, before footsteps died away, the door closed, and then he heard the soft pad of light feet drawing back to his side again.

"Killian?...Can you hear me?" Her usually brash and confident voice sounded tear-choked and hesitant to his ears, paining him further to think that he had caused her distress even as he struggled to part dry and bitten-raw lips to make an audible reply. He might have been angry beyond all measure with her when he woke to realize she had turned him into the evil he hated in order to keep him alive, but all of that had faded away with the agony and apology in her eyes on the shore of that lake. What she'd been made to do in penance, the shock of Excalibur thrusting home within his body, the wave of light transforming her back into his savior, and that final (they'd believed so at least) goodbye had washed the bitterness and the desire for vengeance from his veins. Since then, there had only been room for pain and the gnawing absence of his True Love...not room for much at all beyond the missing her.

She was beside him once more; Killian felt the bed dip gently with her weight as she set herself down on the very edge of it near his hip. A moment later, her tender hand was carefully smoothing his dark fringe of hair back from off his forehead where grime, sweat and blood had plastered it. He managed to blink his eyes open enough to look at her briefly, hoping his expression would somehow convey the words he couldn't seem to produce to tell her he could hear her, he forgave her if she could forgive him in turn, he still loved her, he had feared he would never see her face or feel her touch again, and even that comfort was enough for him to have begun to heal.

Finally, Killian managed a small nod of his head, to which her lips tilted up in the barest hint of a sad smile. Humming low and soothingly in the back of her throat, Emma continued to run her fingers through his hair, despite how matted and dirty Killian was certain it must be. In truth, it wasn't clear who was more calmed by the action - himself or his love. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before her fingertips brushed against a sensitive spot where Hades had jerked his head up by the roots of his hair and Killian could not help but flinch.

A distressed sound escaped Emma's lips as she quickly withdrew her hand, already apologizing as she stood and hurried off - worriedly explaining how she had forgotten herself in her gladness to simply be near him again instead of beginning to treat his wounds.

The sound of water running gained his interest momentarily, and then he felt the bed dip beneath him once more as Emma returned to his side. A warm washcloth touched his face as she laid it over his forehead and eyes for several seconds before beginning to gingerly dab at the dried blood and grime smeared across his forehead and cheeks. She got up once, twice, and yet a third time, keeping the wash rag warm and damp so as to ease the dried matter from his bruised and broken skin without having to scrub any harder than absolutely necessary. And, even with the occasional twinges of pain at her ministrations, Killian felt his tightly clenched and abused muscles begin to relax at last beneath her care.

It wasn't until she had finished washing his face and neck, unbuttoned and removed the ruined ribbons of his jacket and shirt to bathe his shoulders, chest, and stomach, tearing up at the damage that revealed, and urged him gently to sit up so she could cleanse his back as well, that he tried to tell her even a little of what had happened.

She tried to be strong, to remain calm and merely listen to him, to be there for him as he exorcised whatever demons and trauma he needed to release, but he couldn't choke out much before the emotion welling up in his chest clogged his words and forced him into silence again. Emma couldn't stop the first, or the second, silent tear which slipped down her cheek in response to what little he had been able to share (and the crushing guilt that she had helped to put him in his attacker's clutches) and merely seeing the aftereffects written upon his skin. However, even if she couldn't be as strong and solid for him to lean on as she had hoped, she could see he was clinging to control, to sanity, as desperately as one would to the last board in a shipwreck so as not to drown in the storm still swirling around him.

Even before she finished washing the blood from his skin, disinfecting and bandaging the cuts and stabs and burns, she merely pulled back and stared into his eyes, hands cradling his face until he drug in a ragged, rattling breath before she finally whispered, barely audible against his lips, "It's okay, Killian. Let it go."

For several long, tense seconds, Killian merely stared back at her - his faze so wrought, so broken, that Emma almost panicked, not sure that she could truly help him or that she was equipped or enough. Then, slowly, the blue of his eyes clouded, washed paler by the wave of tears that suddenly began to run down his face as it crumpled, the removed and controlled facade collapsing at last as his shoulders began to shake with sobs.

Not knowing what else to do, but glad that maybe he was finally allowing himself what she suspected her needed, Emma pulled him to her chest, hoping she didn't hurt him too badly as she did, and held on as he buried his head against her and let himself cry. Emma didn't shush him or try to speak; she would soothe him when he was ready, but for the moment she sensed her pirate needed to fall apart, to release the pent-up pain and fear and anger. It made her wonder just how much he had kept buried, and for how long.

All the while as she held him, Emma found herself apologizing over his silent sobs, unable to stop, admitting that she knew how she had hurt him, how she had been wrong to disregard his wishes, and swearing that she would never let her needs so supersede his own again. She would do whatever he needed.

Eventually though, as the storm of emotion passed and his shaking stilled, she realized Killian was trying to answer her. Moving his head only slightly, she finally heard his murmured, "Emma, Emma...no, my Love...enough. We've both learned…and we've punished ourselves too much. It's over, it's forgiven…"

She was the one to shake her head then, almost unable to believe he could truly let it go, her hand cradling the back of his head and stroking the strands of his dark hair. "Killian...what I did...I can't make it right...I can't undo what happened to you because I…"

His battered, beloved hand, scraped raw with knuckles swollen and bloodied, but still beautiful to her, came to cover her lips, stopping the flow of words, "Sh...sh…" he soothed. "Emma...all I need is for you to keep holding me."

Releasing a heavy sigh, Emma nodded tightly and pulled her True Love into her careful embrace once more. It wasn't all going to fade immediately; he wasn't healed with a single touch, but she felt for the first time since their whole ordeal had begun, perhaps even since she had picked the dagger up from the street and willingly become the Dark One, that they would in time be alright.

To his simple, bare request, she could only promise with quiet certainty, "Always, Killian. You hear me?... _Always._"


End file.
